Thoughtfully he moved across the darkened studio to the tape deck and flipped a switch, flooding the huge, empty room with the reedy piping of Gheorghe Zamfir, then he returned to the photograph. He stood before it, arms folded, on the very edge of the brilliant pool of light, the only focus in the huge vaulted darkness of the studio.

Beside him on the table lay a small piece of glass. As he tapped the powder onto it and methodically rolled up a piece of paper, his eyes were already dreamy. He sniffed, deeply and slowly, then he walked back to the picture.

It was some time later that, with a felt pen, working with infinite care, the tip of his tongue protruding between his teeth, he began to draw a veil and wimple over Jo’s long, softly curling hair.


***

It was about ten o’clock the next morning that a knock came at the apartment door. Jo opened it to find Sheila Chandler, one of her upstairs neighbors, standing on the landing. She was a prim-looking woman in her late fifties, the intense unreal blackness of her iron-waved hair set off by a startling pink sleeveless chiffon dress. Jo barely knew her.

She gave Jo an embarrassed smile. “I am sorry to disturb you, Miss Clifford,” she said. “I know you’re busy. We can hear you typing. It’s just that I thought I must look in and see if there is anything I can do to help.”

Jo smiled vaguely. “Help?” she said.

“With the baby. I’ve had four of my own and I know how it can be if you get one that cries all night. Staying with you, is it?” The woman was staring past Jo into the apartment.

Jo swallowed hard. “He…you heard him?” She clutched at the door.

“Oh, I’m not complaining!” Sheila Chandler said hastily. “It’s just that on these hot nights, with all the windows open, the noise drifts up the well between the buildings. You know how it is, and my Harry, he’s not sleeping too soundly these days…”

Jo took a grip on herself. “There’s no baby here,” she said slowly. “The noise must be coming from somewhere else.”

The woman stared. “But it was here. I came down-last night, about eleven, and I listened outside your door. I nearly knocked then. Look, my dear, I’m not making any judgment. I don’t care whose baby it is or how it got there, it’s just, well, perhaps you could close the window or something. Have you tried gripe water?”

Jo took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Chandler”-at last she had remembered the woman’s name-“but whatever you think, there is no baby!”

There is no baby.

She repeated the words to herself as she closed the door. Last night at eleven she had sat there, in silence, listening, and there had been no sound…

She went straight to the phone and called Sam, then she walked through into the bedroom and looked around. The windows were wide open. The room was tidy-and empty. The only sound was the distant roar of traffic drifting between the houses from the Cromwell Road.

Sam arrived at ten to twelve. He kissed Jo on the cheek and presented her with a bottle of Liebfraumilch.

She had put on some makeup to try to hide the dark rings under her eyes and was wearing her peacock-blue silk dress. Her hair was tied back severely with a black velvet ribbon. He looked her up and down critically. “How are you feeling, Jo?” The makeup did not fool him, no more than had her cheerful voice and breezy invitation. She had sounded near the breaking point.

“I’m fine. My breasts are back to normal, thank God!” She managed a shaky smile. “Let’s open that bottle. I’ve drunk all the Scotch. Sam-I think I’m going mad.”

Sam raised an eyebrow as he rummaged in the drawer for a corkscrew. She found it for him. “It’s the baby. I’ve heard him again.”

“I see.” Sam was concentrating on the bottle. “Last night?”

She nodded. “And, Sam, the woman upstairs has heard him too. She came down to complain.” Her hands were shaking slightly as she reached for two wineglasses from the cabinet.

He took them from her, his hands covering hers for a moment. “Jo, if the woman upstairs has heard it there has to be a logical explanation. There must be a baby in one of the other apartments and you’ve both heard it.”

“No.” Jo shook her head. “It was William.”

“Jo-”

“The noise was in this apartment, Sam. She said so. Last night. She stood on the landing outside my door and listened, and heard him!”

Sam pressed a glass of wine into her hand. “May I wander around?”

Jo waited on the balcony, sipping her wine, staring across into the trees in the square. It was five minutes before Sam joined her.

“I admit it is a puzzle,” he said at last. “But I’m not convinced there isn’t a baby-a real baby-somewhere in the building, or perhaps next door.” He had brought the bottle with him and topped up her glass. “Unless-I suppose there is a faint possibility that somewhere psychokinetic energy is being created, presumably by you-to project the sound of a child crying, but no, I don’t think so. It is so unlikely as to be impossible. I suggest you put it out of your mind.”

“I can’t,” Jo cried. “Can you imagine what it’s like hearing little Will cry, knowing he’s hungry, wanting to hold him? Wondering why, if I can’t feed him, someone else doesn’t? Someone who is there, in the past with him!”

“Jo, I did warn you,” Sam said gently. “You should have stopped while you still could.”

Jo stared at him. “You mean I can’t stop now?” She snapped off a stem of honeysuckle. “No, of course I can’t, you’re right.” Leaning on the balustrade, she sniffed at the delicate red and gold flower. “I tried to call Dr. Bennet but he’s still away in the States. Sam, I’ve got to work this thing through, haven’t I? I’ve got to get it out of my system. And the only way to do that is to go on with the story. Find out what happened next.” She turned to face him. “Please, Sam, I want you to hypnotize me. I want you to regress me.”

Sam was watching her closely. Thoughtfully he raised his glass and took a sip of wine. “I think that’s a good idea, Jo,” he said at last.

“You mean you will?” She had been prepared for a stand-up argument.

“Yes, I’ll hypnotize you.”

“When?”

“After lunch. If the mood seems right we’ll have a go this afternoon.”

To her surprise Jo wasn’t nervous. She was relaxed in Sam’s company, relieved not to be alone in the apartment anymore, and she enjoyed the lunch with him. Several times she found herself talking about Nick, as if she could not avoid the sound of his name, but each time she sensed Sam’s disapproval and, not wanting to spoil the atmosphere between them, she changed the subject. They played music and drank the wine, and she lay back on the sofa, listening to the soft strains of the guitar.

She was almost asleep when she felt him sit down on the sofa beside her and gently take the empty wineglass from her hand.

“I think this is as good a moment as any to start, don’t you?” he said. He raised his hand and lightly passed it over her face, closing her eyes as he began to talk.

She could feel herself drifting willingly under his spell. It was different from Carl Bennet. She could hear Sam’s voice and she was aware of her surroundings, just as in Devonshire Place, but she could not move. She was conscious of him standing up and going over to the front door, where she heard him draw the bolt. Puzzled, she wanted to ask him why, but she could feel part of her mind detaching itself, roaming free, settling back into blackness. Suddenly she was afraid. She wanted to fight him but she could not move and she could not speak.

Sam sat beside her on the sofa. “No, Jo,” he said softly. “There is nothing you can do about it, nothing at all. It never seems to have crossed your mind, Jo, that you might not be alone in your new incarnation, that others might have followed you. That old scores might have to be settled and old pains healed. In this life, Jo.” He gazed down at her silently for several minutes. Then he raised his hands to her face again. “But for now, we’ll meet in the past. You know your place there. You are still a young and obedient wife there, Jo, and you will do as I say. Now, you are going back…back to that previous existence, Jo, back to when you were Matilda, wife of William, Lord of Brecknock, Builth and Radnor, Hay, Upper Gwent and Gower, back to the time at Brecknock after Will’s birth, back to the day when you must once again welcome your husband and lord into your bed.”

16

The dining room in the hotel on the rue St. Honoré was beginning to empty. Nick was immersed in some sketches and Judy was bored. She got up and helped herself to some English newspapers discarded on the next table, then, pouring herself some coffee, she began to leaf through them.

“God! They’re not even today’s,” she exclaimed in disgust after a moment.

Nick glanced up. “They get the new ones in the foyer. Here.” He tossed some francs on the table. “Get me a Times while you’re at it, will you?”

But Judy was staring down at the paper on the table in front of her, open-mouthed.

“So he went ahead and did it,” she said softly. “He actually did it.”

There was something in her voice that made Nick look up. Even upside-down he recognized Jo’s photo.

“What the hell is that?” he said sharply. He snatched the paper from her.

“It’s nothing, Nick. Nothing, don’t bother to read it-”

She was suddenly afraid. After a week without a mention of her name, Jo’s shadow had risen between them again. She stood up abruptly. “I’ll get today’s,” she said, but he never heard her. He was staring down at yesterday’s copy of the Daily Mail .

He read the article twice, then, glancing at his watch, he stood up, folded the paper under his arm, and strode toward the iron-gated elevator. He passed Judy in the foyer and never saw her.